Haven
by Beboots
Summary: A (hopefully) original look on what happened to Randall after MI. Randall has been living in a haven for bannished monsters for the past three years, but not all monsters find their way there, as he did...
1. A New Day

Well, I'm relatively new to writing fanfiction for the Monsters Inc fandom (aside from that tiny little one shot like, a year ago, 'A Quick Little Scare', and my more recent 'Still Waiting to Wake Up'), but I've recently re-obsessed myself with Randall, and decided that he needed for fanfiction. :) I wasn't going to post this until I'd finished at least five chapters (only finished writing three chapters and the first few paragraphs of the fourth), but I've gotten a job working as the staff's children's babysitter (along with my sister) at this campground, and will be basically living in a cabin (with no internet access) for most of the summer, not including the day or two I get for breaks at home every week. So, as you can see, I won't be having much time to write this summer (unless I end up becoming inspired and writing out stuff long-hand), so I've decided to post this now. If I get some good response, I'll post the second chapter on my first day off back at home.

Please, tell me (review, or e-mail if you like) if there's anything you think I can do to improve my writing. __

Disclaimer: ...Does anybody even read these anymore? Seriously? If you think that I own Monsters Inc, et al, you're seriously deluded... and I'd like to be deluded with you. :3 What I do own is this somewhat bizarre plotline, and a few background characters that I'm fairly certain won't become Mary Sues or Larry/Harry/whatever Stues either. Probably. No love interests for Randall in sight!

* * *

_Nightmares again. _

_A vicious line of pain across his forehead._

_Images swam sickeningly in front of his vision; what was left of it. Through his swollen eye he could only see tiny slits of light. The metal bars of his cage lurched in and out of view. _

_A heavy wooden stick, painted an obnoxious shade of pink, swinging down to land across the shoulders of his upper set of arms that sent his scales flicking automatically to match the shade. _

_The shrieking laughter of human children heralding the shifting of colours._

_The other shrieks, from their parents, of disgust and fear; quickly sheparding their children away from the 'Swamp Thing', only to be quickly replaced by more and more humans. _

_Funny how when he had meant them to be screaming, not so long ago, the screams held satisfaction to him. Screams aimed **at **him... now those hurt._

_The stick descended again, a neon blue colour this time. _

_Thud! Flick flick flick. Laughter. Screams._

_His face met the straw-strewn floor. He would have moaned in despair, but the duct tape encircling his mouth made it all but impossible to breathe, let alone make any sounds. _

_Green stick. Thud! Flick flick flick. Laughter. Screams._

_One of his arms crunched painfully as he hit the floor. He cradled it to his chest with it's partner arm. Broken. Had been for nearly a week. _

_Red stick. Thud! Flick flick flick. Laughter. Screams._

_Huh, red. Ruby-red, cherry-red, poppy-red... Blood-red. _

_A voice, harsh and high, shouted,_

_"Daddy, daddy! Make 'im pink again! I want 'im pink!"_

_Pink stick. Thud! Flick flick flick. The little girl's laughter drowning out the screams._

_Laughs? Screams? They were all the same here._

Randall woke, staring at the ceiling of his small bedroom. The nightmares came every night. They had ceased to bother him.... much.

He reached his upper right arm across his chest to check it's left, feeling along it for any sign of a break without looking. He'd done it so many times he barely even thought about it. His three-fingered hand nimbly felt along the slender, slightly crooked bone of the arm. Still healed.

Good.

With a quiet groan, the lizard monster extracted himself from the tangled, threadbare blankets of his bed. Yet again, one of his many limbs was caught in the sheets. This time it was his lowest pair. Somehow one of his feet had gotten through one of the holes in the blanket during the night. He glared at the offending limb. It really was much too early in the morning to solve the problems associated with getting out of bed.

He braced his upper back against the wall, and with his second set of feet, slowly unlooped the material restraining them, only to feel the bed shift beneath him. Too late he realized that the bed had slowly scraped along the floor as he pushed himself against the wall, the result leaving the rest of his twelve and a half foot long body unsupported. He fell in a crumpled heap in between the wall and his now-moved cot, his upper feet and tail waving comically in the air.

Laughter suddenly filled the room.

"Oh, ha ha, very funny. Now shut up." Randall growled to the rooms other occupant as he heaved himself back onto his bed.

"I'll have you know that getting out of bed is a very dangerous operation, one that should be done cautiously and with care. In fact, it's so dangerous, it shouldn't be done at all. So if you'll excuse me..." The purple-and-blue lizard swiftly covered his head with his bed sheet, and to all appearances, fell back asleep.

"Come on, now..." The other monster said placatingly as he edged towards the bed. Any apologetic sense was lost, though, because he continued snorting with laughter. This monster was reptilian as well, but resembled a human-world lizard much more closely than his room-mate did. One would almost mistake him for one of such said lizards, if it weren't for the fact that he was nearly nine feet long, and the fact that he was covered in bright red scales. Another unusual trait that set him apart from those smaller lizards was the long whisker-like fronds that trailed out from his muzzle like an absurdidly long mustache. He was known as Jared by the monsters he knew, and the 'Sandwich Guy' by those who didn't [1]. He was called this nickname because he owned and ran a small sandwich shop in downtown Haven.

Now Haven was an unusual place; it was the only monster city in the human world. Solely monsters who had been banished, and those who had been born there inhabited it; the monsters of their original world had no idea it even existed. As long as there had been monsters in exile, there had been this city. It had been merely a hovel on the edge of a large river for hundreds of years, but in the last century, it had flourished; with the invention of the door-system, more and more monsters were banished, mostly accidentally, others purposely. In either case, banished monsters were always assumed dead (for who could survive in a world literally filled with toxic substances?). Banished monsters quickly learnt that what they'd always been told, that children and humans were deadly, was a false conception. The entire city of Haven was located underground, beneath a large human city. It's network of tunnels extended far beyond the contours of the human city; some ran parallel along the subway lines, others dug deep into the garbage dumps, still others connected to the sewer systems, which served as the gateways between the monster city and the human one. The monsters depended on the humans (not that the humans knew, of course) for food, electronics and other supplies.

Haven's residents were united in the way that only creatures that depend on each other for survival can. Every single monster above a certain age had duties; some dug new tunnels and maintained old ones (a never-ending task), others went aboveground for supplies (usually the smallest and slyest of the monsters), but only the most elite were chosen to aid in the search for more banished monsters. Using sources as mundane as human tabloid newspapers and overheard human conversations to the Internet and other more respectable sources, the monsters would check into rumors of anything that had even the remotest possibility of being a new banished monster, and send one of their agents out to retrieve them. More often than not, the monster came back empty handed (or tentacled, whatever), but occasionally they would be successful, and the new monster would be warmly welcomed to Haven. As the city had less than one hundred occupants, everybody knew everybody and their cousin, and any new monster arriving was a big event.

That was exactly how Randall himself had come to Haven; having been banished to a swamp in Louisiana, in the human world, he had been beaten into unconsciousness by a woman he only knew by the appellation of 'Momma'. While he'd been senseless, they'd apparently decided he wasn't worth eating, and had sold him to a passing 'freak show', where he had later been rescued by his current room-mate, Jared, who'd taken a turn at (as he put it) 'Being a hero'. Jared had brought him to Haven, shown him the ropes, and gave him a place to stay.

That had been nearly three years ago. Randall had since gotten a job at the only energy company in this monster city, a place called BrightFright Ltd. Until he'd given a demonstration, the officials at the company hadn't believed him when he'd said that he'd been a scarer at the most successful branch of ScareCo - Monsters Inc. - and a top scarer at that. With his engineering and scarer background, Randall had risen swiftly through the (sparse) ranks of the company, getting much more respect than he ever would have had he been still working at Monsters Inc back in Monstropolis.

One constant in Haven was the lack of energy; all it's inhabitants had learnt to take it in stride, and not to waste useful energy. Fire-breathers were put to good use, boiling water, heating buildings, etc. In Monstropolis they had been despised as the worst kind of room-mate, for fairly obvious reasons, but here they were an eagerly sought after, luxurious commodity.[2]

But we've gotten off track; back to this particular morning in the human-world monster-city of Haven.

Jared prodded Randall's blanket-covered form with one blunt claw. "C'mon, get up! We both gotta get to work, and you always take forever to get ready! Be at the front door in five minutes, and whether you're ready or not, I'm dragging you out the door!" The red lizard-monster called as he exited the room.

Grumbling incoherently, Randall slid out of bed. Running a three-fingered hand through his fronds, avoiding the long, thin scar in between the first two (evidence of his somewhat violent initiation to his permanent stay the human world), Randall stumbled to the other side of the room, where a old, cracked mirror was propped up against a chipped ceramic basin, filled with slightly tepid, day-old water. Cupping a pair of his slim hands, the other pair gripping the edge of the table upon which stood the basin, he reached into the water to splash his purple-scaled face. Blinking the water out of his vibrant green eyes, he gazed at his image in the old mirror. The thing had been a lucky find, one of his first after arriving at Haven. Luxuries such as mirrors and glass windows all had to be taken from the human city above. Nobody was allowed to take things that big while the humans were using them; if stuff like that went missing regularly, they would be sure to notice. Humans were stupid, but not that stupid.[3]

Randall's own refection stared back at him. It didn't look a whole lot different from a few years ago; the scar was new, his scales were a bit more taught against the bones of his skull, but then again, all of Haven's residents were on the skinny side. One just couldn't afford to be fat. The scales themselves, though... They didn't have the slightly dusty, dull look they'd had in his last months in Monstropolis. Oh, sure, they were dusty, but only because he hadn't had a chance to take a long soak in a large bath (an unheard of thing, really, in the city), but underneath the dust, they shone with health. He'd never really noticed that, before. He reached up to run a hand through his fronds, smirking. Oh, yeah, he'd never looked better. Sleek, muscular, long fronds, shiny scales, a roguish-looking scar that did nothing to mar his features...

Not that he had a girlfriend to show off to. Still, what was he gonna do? Miraculously bump into an intelligent, beautiful lizard-monster female, his age, with his own interests, in the human world? That only happened in cheesy, badly written stories posted on the internet.[4]

His thoughts were interrupted, again, by Jared.

"Randall! Come _on_!"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm coming!" He shouted over his shoulder. Turning with one final look at his reflection, he grabbed his trench coat from the "coat-hook" (half of an old candlestick dug into the dirt walls). He shrugged on the coat; one of his most prized possessions. It had taken him ages to save up for it; it had had to be tailored to fit him especially, with an extra pair of sleeves sewn on. It had many volumous pockets, and was the only real item of clothing he owned or needed aside from a small scarf he used to take off the edge of the cold in wintertime.

Now being dressed and ready to go, Randall joined his roommate at the door, walking right past him. Neither of them bothered to lock the door; they didn't have the need to. Nobody really owned anything worth stealing in Haven, and whatever was worth stealing was almost always immediately recognized by one person or another: one of the advantages of having such a small community.

A new day had begun.

[1] Woot! Subway reference. ;) Love their meatball subs. If you haven't tried 'em, go try one as soon as possible. Seriously.

[2]Sorry for the large amount of expository back-story. I tried to keep it simple, so if you read it all, have a cookie! ...If you skipped through it... Grrr...

[3] Haha! You thought you could escape the exposition, didn't you? :)

[4]Sorry, couldn't resist. ;)


	2. Polite Conversation

Chapter Two: Polite Conversation/The Yet Even More Exposition Chapter

Downtown Haven: the one and only hubbub of monster life in the human world. Every day was the market; monsters bringing food, trinkets and other supplies scrounged from the prosperous city above them. The downtown was the largest open space in the underground monster city; cleverly designed skylights provided most of the light, and ancient kerosene lamps provided their own smoky illumination whenever the sun wasn't in the sky.

Down below, the narrow streets that had never felt the weight of a car, monster or otherwise, were churning with furred, scaled, tentacled and other monsters too bizarre for any human (or even certain monsters) to describe. In a niche tucked into one of the walls, a small, many-armed monster played an upbeat tune on a small metal pipe. Passerby's called greetings as they passed, some tossing small items of food, which the monster would then stuff into one of it's three mouths, nodding a thank-you without ever halting it's song.

All along the sides of the streets, monsters had set up stalls, and those who didn't have the luck to own their own stalls laid out their wares on ratty old blankets for inspection.

On one such blanket lay altered human plush toys, that now resembled the more monstrous creatures like the ploofy, a cycloption canine, lancitie, a three-eyed cat with just as many tails, furbys[1] and other such toys to appeal to young monsters, and even their nostalgic parents.

A many-tentacled monster beside that one held out bowls, cups, cutlery and other kitchen supplies to passerby's for inspection. No two had come from the same set.

Randall and Jared wove their way through the crowds with the ease of long months, and years, of practice. Greetings filled the air. Every monster always found time to say a simple "Good Morning" to each other. The reptilian monsters said their fair share as well.

"Randall! Hey! Stop by a minute!" Came a call from one of the stalls. This one was a real stall; four poles, a cloth roof, and several shelves containing reading material: books, magazines, and week-old newspapers from above.

"'Morning, Moss[2]!" Randall said to the stall-keeper as he danced through a small eddy in the crowd to arrive in the stall.

"I was hopin' I'd catch you this mornin'," Moss, a spindly, six-limbed monster covered head-to-toe with shaggy, bright green fur, told him.

"Really... why?" Randall asked, folding both pairs of arms, feigning disinterest.

"'Cause look what I just got in!" The shopkeeper reached one long arm below his own roughly-cut wooden table that he used as a desk, bringing up a small green paper back book. "I know you expressed interest in the series..." In his clawed hands was a copy of Jurassic Park, that looked almost brand-new. [3]

Involuntarily, Randall reached out to grab it.

"Nuh-uh!" Moss said childishly, holding the book above his head, out of Randall's reach. "Batteries first, then you get the book."

Randall sighed, showing more of his sharp teeth than necessary. "Name your price."

"Six Double As. Fully charged." Batteries, and in fact, any sort of power, was more valuable than gold in this monster city, what with the power shortages. A single pair of AA batteries could go a long way, if used correctly.

"Yeah, right." Randall snorted. "Look, I'm gonna be late for work, Moss... A single pair, half-charged, and I know I'm getting ripped off here."

Moss shook his head stubbornly, still holding the book high. "I'm not goin' lower than five, fully charged. And that's final."

"Fine, bye then!" Randall turned to leave.

"Wait, where're you goin'?"

"Work. You know, the place where I go so I can get enough power to get food on the table? That place? The place that I'm not supposed to be late getting to?" Randall explained, over his shoulder, slowly and clearly, as if to a young child.

"...But the book!"

"Somebody else'll buy it. I'll just be leaving now." He began walking. 'Three... Two... One..."

"Four AA. Half-charged. And I'll throw in this copy of 'A Midsummer Night's Dream' to boot." Randall grinned to himself, and turned around to face the shopkeeper.

"Deal." The lizard-monster reached into one of his large pockets, digging out a small leather bag. With one hand, he dropped four quality alkaline batteries into Moss's fur-covered hand, reaching out for the two paperbacks with another hand. "Nice doin' business with ya." He smiled as he stuffed the two books with care into one of his inside pockets.

"Can we go now?" Asked Jared boredly, from where he stood leaning against one of the stall's poles, arms crossed, 'mustache' slack, the very image of a bored lizard-monster. Without waiting for Randall to answer, they both set off down the street.

"_ 'Work. You know, the place where I go so I can get enough power to get food on the table?'_" Jared imitated shrewdly, catching stalking along beside his friend. "You've really got to stop taking advantage of people like that, you know."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's not my fault I have great haggling skills and Moss doesn't." Randall protested good-naturedly, sweeping his fronds back with one hand. "Besides, it was worth it, this time." He patted his bulging pocket.

Jared snorted. "You should have been an actor; you certainly have the skills to be one." He jibed, nudging Randall with one claw.

"Yeah, yeah, I'll keep that in mind next time and let myself get jyped, happy?" Jared paused.

"...On second thought, why don't you not, and use the batteries you saved to get me a nice present... you know, like a chunk of soap or something." He wheedled.

"Uh-huh, sure," Randall hummed, as if considering. As if he had come to a decision, he stopped and turned towards the other monster. "Or maybe I could try to get you a solid gold bar as well? I mean, that kind of stuff is just lying around _everywhere_! I'm surprised we haven't had to evict anyone to find place for all of the extra supplies we have lying around." He returned to walking.

"Point taken."

They continued on in amiable silence.

"Here's my stop!" Jared announced as they arrived at a stall slightly larger than the ones they had passed. The front was covered by a large piece of salvaged wood. Painted words proudly proclaimed that this was "Jared's Sandwiches: Slither down for a bite of our famous slime bread!", with a cartoon-like depiction of the red lizard-monster's head, and a green sandwich missing a bite out of one side, right next to it. There were already half a dozen monsters waiting patiently in line.

"See you after work, Randall!" Jared called. Randall grunted in reply as he was swallowed by the crowd.

He continued onwards through the bustle of monsters, making his may slowly but surely through the streets towards one of the largest buildings in the city; the BrightFright Ltd building. He supposed he could probably due to find a place to live closer to work, but had never really gotten around to moving.

Finally he arrived. The front doors weren't as impressive as Monster's Inc had been in Monstropolis; they were recycled, just like just about everything in Haven. They had once been several car doors - all of them painted different colours - and were now welded together to make a sturdy door. It actually looked quite appealing, even with the small flakes of rust decorating it here and there. One could see into the building through the still-intact glass windows. Gripping one of the door handles, Randall bent it downwards with a grunt. The door slowly creaked open, scraping against the ground as if in protest. He quickly scurried inside, and the door closed heavily with a loud, ominous thud in his wake.

The interior of BrightFright Ltd was nowhere near as impressive as the front entrance to Monsters Inc had been. The walls were made of the same combination of cement, dirt and metal as the rest of the underground city was. The ceiling was so low that monsters taller than eight feet had to stoop down to avoid hitting the ceiling. If one looked closely, one could actually make out the marks where more than a few monsters' horns had scraped along the roof. The air wasn't filled with the cheerful sound of a receptionist's voice; it was silent and still in comparison with the cacophony of the market outside.

A few flickering light bulbs were the only illumination aside from the little light that trickled in through the dusty car door windows of the front door. The BrightFright building was one of the only places in the entire city that regularly used electricity. Part of it was powered by their own facilities, but a much larger portion had been tapped from human hydroelectric lines.

Randall strode forward on light feet, to the end of the small hallway, where a single eyeball and a mouth were perched on a wall across from a small culvert, supported only by a thin green tentacle.

"Good morning, Mr. Boggs!" It chirped cheerfully.

"Mornin', Ellen." Randall sighed, shrugging out of his coat and hanging it on a small metal coat hanger in the culvert. As he did so, one of his new books tumbled out of it's pocket and landed with a light thump that send a small amount of dust into the air.

"What's that?" Ellen asked as the lizard-monster bent to pick up the copy of A Midsummer Night's Dream.

"Book." He replied shortly, putting it back.

"You ripped off Moss again, didn't you?" She asked flatly.

"Yup."

"Randall..." She said warningly.

"Fine, fine, I won't do it again." He turned, holding both pairs of arms up in a 'You've got me' manner.

"Meaning you'll do the same thing tomorrow."

"Yup." He smirked, moving towards the roughly-hewn wooden door next to the eyeball.

"Well, have a nice day!"

"You too." Randall nodded as he entered the door.

Ellen was another one of the oddities of Haven that set it apart from Monster-World cities. Supposedly, her ancestors were among the first to be banished to the human world, and it was one of them that had founded Haven. She wasn't just one tentacle; she was a multitude of them, each tip ending with a mouth and eye. Her system spread all throughout the city, running along the ceilings and walls of downtown, through to the smallest outskirt tunnels. She acted as the city's messenger; she could reach anybody at anytime, as long as he or she where within the city's limits. She was also the main source of gossip, seeing all, knowing all.

Randall had been told horror stories by young children when he'd first arrived that Ellen's main body was hidden in a secret room near the center of Haven, in which every seven years seven monsters were sent into so Ellen could feed. Supposedly, anybody who went into the room never came out. Randall wasn't quite sure if such a thing where true or not; he wouldn't put it past some monsters. He'd probably never find out, as it wasn't exactly something you could bring up in a polite conversation.

The BrightFright building was actually rather simple, once one thought about it. There was a small break room, containing a few beaten-up pieces of furniture, a Door Maintenance room, in which doors were built and fixed, a tiny lab in the back that was their Research and Development department, the single scare floor itself, looking almost pitifully small and dingy when compared to Monster's Inc.'s Floors A through F, and there was the door storage room, that contained less than three-hundred closet doors. Scare assistants and apprentices brought in the doors here manually. Because of the lack of automatisation and facilities, BrightFright didn't produce much electric power, so on the side it also recycled batteries. A single full scream canister could fully recharge over four dozen standard AA batteries, a veritable fortune. The company also lacked the proper number of qualified employees; each monster had more than a single worker's responsibilities.

Randall was no exception. He wasn't merely a scarer; he also worked in the research and development department, as well as occasionally helping to maintain doors. In a standard day, he would scare a few dozen kids in the morning (finishing much more quickly than the other three meager scarers), take a donut break (it was still called that, even though donuts had never actually been served in the break room), then head to Door Maintenance to see if they were short of hands. If they were, he'd help out for a few hours, if not, he headed directly to Research and Development, where most of his time was spent picking his brain of details of the Monster's Inc. door stations (that were far superior to their own), and occasionally work on another prototype scream extractor he was building. Unfortunately, the parts he'd used to create his original prototype, the one he'd built for Waternoose, were only available in the Monster World. The half a door station that he'd found lying around conveniently at the Monsters Inc. factory, that he'd altered to make the main nozzle of his invention was quite different from the ones in Haven; he was still trying to remember exactly why their circuitry was so much more efficient, but it was no easy task. It was like trying to play an advanced computer game built for modern computers on one a decade old with less than a fifth of it's capabilities. Many times he'd gone back to his home frustrated at the end of a particularly trying work day because of mechanical parts that simply refused to work for him. Other times, he'd remained at work late at night, not even noticing the time, while he wrestled with a stubborn machine.

When he'd first begun to work there, he'd actually brought parts home to work on them in the evenings; his half of his and Jared's apartment had grown so cluttered that his parts that they'd actually begun to spill over onto his roommate's side. It was only when Jared had nearly skewered one of his feet on a circuit board in the middle of the night on the way to the pit-toilet when the red lizard monster had actually put his foot down and made Randall take all the gadgets back to work. [4]

Randall still had over half an hour before he had to report to the scare floor, so he began to head for the break room. He was distracted, trying to decide for himself what exactly Ellen really _did _eat. No monster could survive on _nothing_, even gelatinous monsters had to absorb the odd sandwich now and again. But she wouldn't be able to eat seven different monsters, would she? I mean, people would notice if seven monsters went missing every so often, right?

So absorbed was he in these thoughts that he didn't notice the shadow creeping along the wall behind him. It's amber eyes gleamed in the shadows.

It leapt! The shadow landed heavily on his midsection, knocking him down onto the floor, jarring the lizard-monster back into reality.

Randall's scales automatically shifted to match the dirt floor, leaving him a sickly looking pale mottled brown.

There he was, lying belly-up on the floor, completely at the mercy of the ominous shadow looming over him...

[1] Oh come on, you guys know that those things are way to weird to have been thought up by a human... ;)

[2] Fungus, Moss, ha ha? Get it? ...It's a joke, okay?! ;

[3] I forget which fic, but somebody somewhere wrote a scene in which Randall read this book, I believe, and he liked it... Does anybody know which one? I wanna re-read it, but I can't find it. Oo; Oh, yeah, and A Midsummer Night's Dream (by William Shakespeare, for those who have never heard of it... heathens!) is a very good read, just so you know. Just look past the complicated language, and see how funny the characters really are! ... Puck rules! :D

[4] More exposition I say, more! :)


	3. A Little Bit Of Foreshadowing

Chapter Three: Even More Exposition/A Little Bit Of Foreshadowing

A/N: More original characters ahoy! :)

"Got you good that time, didn't I? Ha!" The shadow cried triumphantly. Realizing who it was, Randall shoved the smaller monster off him rudely.

"Get off!" Standing up, he slowly dusted himself off, his scales flicking back to their normal purple and blue coloration as he did so. "There's scared... And then there's surprised!" Randall protested coolly.

"And you were both!" The other monster laughed. [1]

"You're not even supposed to be here yet, kid!" Randall growled, choosing to ignore the last comment the young monster had made. Pin, or Pianissimo, as his mother called him, or simply 'Kid' to Randall, was his scare apprentice. Apprentices at BrightFright Ltd had the same duties as scare assistants did, as well as learning first-hand how exactly to scare. The apprenticeship system was necessary; since they had no training simulator room, they had to find other ways to train their scare recruits. Pin actually showed the true makings of a scarer, Randall had to admit, unlike the others that passed for scarers in the place. Not that he'd ever tell Pin that, at least not yet.

The kid was barely older than twelve; the absolute minimum to begin training as a scarer. He was a brown-furred monster with only four limbs; two digigrade legs for walking on, and two tentacles ending in what resembled mittened hands for grasping. His face was a slightly lighter shade of brown than his long fur was, and ended in a beak-like snout that contained a cluster of sharp pointy teeth. A short, tapering tail helped him keep balance. He was an enthusiastic character: so enthusiastic at times that it was all Randall could do to tell him to shut his mouth.

Plus there was the fact that Pin (who insisted he be called that because he said his real name "sounded stupid") hero-worshipped Randall. In his eyes, the lizard monster had single-handedly saved Haven from the energy crisis, and was the best scarer there ever was or ever would be. It was Pin's mission in life to become merely half as good as he thought Randall was. The fur on the top of his head that had been jelled-up to resemble Randall's own three fronds were a bit much, though, but no matter what Randall said, he wouldn't change his fur-style.

Randall, of course, had been flattered that somebody thought that highly of him, but wasn't quite sure he was a good role model. Pin knew pretty much nothing of the events leading up to his banishment; merely that Randall had once been a top scarer at Monsters Inc. He just assumed that Randall had been trapped in the human world accidentally, like a large portion of the monsters in Haven had been. Randall intended to keep him in the dark about his somewhat... shady past. [2]

Back to present; Pin was still emitting the occasional giggle, snickering from behind one tentacle. Randall merely sighed, crossing both pairs of arms, waiting patiently for Pin to stop.

After a few seconds, the younger monster did, although he still let out an occasional chuckle.

"Is there any reason you decided to grace me with your presence this early in the morning, kid?" Randall asked sarcastically.

Pin straightened at this and nodded. "I almost forgot! Look at this!" The apprentice handed the lizard monster a sheet of paper.

Randall's fronds pricked curiously as he grabbed the paper and read it; it was an advertisement flyer made from unbleached brownish paper, obviously recycled.

"Go ahead to the break room, Kid. I'll meet you there in a minute." Randall said, waving the paper at him absently as he began to read.

In bold text across the top were the words, "Someone Needs Your Help!". Underneath this ever so fascinating heading, there was the black and white picture of a small dirty monster with bedraggled fur and impossibly huge eyes, as if impeaching somebody to help him.

Randall read on. "On any given week, a total of three monsters are banished into the human world. Less than 10% of these monsters make Haven their home. Make a difference! Only you can help! Volunteer to rescue one of these poor monsters out there in the world at our center in the downtown area! After a short briefing, you will be sent out to find a given monster. If you return with your monster, you will be rewarded with a sum of 100 AAs, as well as Haven's gratitude. Volunteers are gravely needed for this task! Consider it, for it could mean the world to some mon out there." Beneath that was another black and white picture of the same monster, cleaned up and smiling, hugging a huge furry monster with claws larger than it's own hands.

Randall fought the urge to gag at the cheesiness.

At the bottom of the page, in tiny print that Randall had to squint to read were the words,

" The same sum will be given to your next of kin if you do not return from your task within a year."

"Charming." Randall snorted.

This flyer was from the same place that had sent out Jared to bring him to Haven himself. Should he sign up? It wasn't as if BrightFright really needed him desperately anymore; he could certainly afford to leave for a month or two. He was really beginning to feel cooped up anyway... An adventure would do him good, the lizard-monster supposed.

"So you gonna do it?" Pin asked hopefully. The kid had been standing there, watching him the whole time as he read the flyer.

Randall chose not to answer. He never was one to rush into anything, and he certainly wasn't going to change the habit now.

"Why are you still here?" He rolled up the flyer into a tube and playfully hit Pin on the shoulder with it. "Move! Now!"

"Ow ow ow!" The younger monster faked a grimace as he scrambled down the hallway to the break room ahead of him. "I'm not here!"

_Sulley was dreaming._

_James P. Sullivan, reaching out one large hand, grasped the door handle, encompassing it completely. He tentatively opened the pink-flowered white door. It creaked slowly as he did so. Slowly, the large furry monster peered into the child's room, and spotted a familiar figure._

_"Boo!" Sulley smiled._

_"Kitty!" It cried gleefully._

_Sulley reached out his large arms, happy to see the small child again. _

_"Oh, Boo, I've missed you so mu-" He was interrupted by a strong blow to the head. The new CEO of Monsters Inc. was knocked backwards, out through the closet door. The solid floor of the simulator room has dissolved; Sulley clung desperately to the doorframe as it hurtled through space in the door vault._

_"Look at everybody's favorite scarer now, you **stupid**, pathetic **waste**!"_

_But suddenly it wasn't himself clinging to the doorframe; he was standing above his own body, staring down at it through squinting green eyes. He couldn't stop himself from saying the words, stop his body from doing those things. His scaled foot stomped down onto one clawed hand. The body continued. "You've been number one for too long, Sullivan!" Sulley could feel the vehemence behind the words being spoken, the long years of emotional torment. "Now your time is up!" He leant forward and grinned in a manner that was made all the more sinister by 'his' mouth full of teeth. "And don't worry," He said, slowly putting pressure on his body's remaining hand. "I'll take **good **care of the **kid**!" _

_"No!" His body cried. But before he could knock himself completely off the doorframe, his head snapped backwards as the kid - Boo - leapt onto his back, pulling at his fronds. His - Randall's - body panicked. He twisted, stumbled, ran into the wall... Then changed colour repeatedly as he was beaten over the head with a baseball bat by the child hanging to his upper torso like a limpet. _

_Then, suddenly, he couldn't breath. He writhed instinctively, but exhaustion seemed to seep into his very bones. Coupled with the fact that his neck was nearly crimped, he soon gave up moving, completely at the mercy of... himself._

_How strange. _

_"Looks like you're out of a job." His real body smirked as his mind, in another's body, fought to breathe._

_He wasn't in control of anything. Sulley could only watch, through Randall's eyes, as his body went through with the banishment._

_"Wait, please... Don't, don't, don't!" He pleaded with his body, to no avail. He gave a long drawn-out cry as he was tossed through the door. "Nooooooo!"_

_"Momma! 'Nother gator got in the house!" He stared in horror at the human kid, then searched franticly for a way out of the cramped trailer. _

_"Another gator? Gimme that shovel!" Then all he could do was scream in pain and terror as he was beaten with a shovel._

_Darkness. _[3]

In his own bed, in his own apartment in Monstropolis, and most importantly of all, in his own body, James P. Sullivan woke up in a cold sweat that matted down his blue and purple fur. He put his head in his clawed hands as overwhelming guilt washed over him.

The alarm clock on his bedside table flashed 2:13 am. The furred monster slowly laid himself back down on his comfortable bed, and stared at his bedroom ceiling blankly, his mind working furiously.

He didn't fall back asleep until dawn.

[1] Brother Bear reference! :D …And I'm not just quoting other sources because I'm running out of ideas… Really! shifty eyes

[2] You cannot escape... the exposition! :)

[3]Oooh... Weird mind-link neo-trippy dream sequence! Ooogelie-boogelie! waggles fingers :D

Yes, I know that chapter was quite short, and a little sub-par. Sorry; I was running low on inspiration. :( Don't worry, the next one will be better!


	4. Unnoticed Followers

Chapter Four: Unnoticed Followers/The Guess what? More Exposition! Chapter

A/N: Sorry 'bout the wait. I had Writer's Block From Hell. ; School didn't help much either. Oh, well...

The pipes Randall was now skittering through were the last barrier between the two cities, the monster one and the human one. This far up, most of the tunnels had been made by humans. Their original uses may have once been maintenance tunnels for subway engineers, some even for sewage drainage, but they had long fallen into disuse.

Now, they were monster territory. 1

Randall nodded silently to the two guards at the end of the pipe. They were merely sentinels for Haven's limits, a precautionary measure. They were the first ones to sound the alarm in the improbable event of humans accidentally stumbling upon the city. The last time that had happened had been nearly a decade previous to Randall's arrival in Haven, and it was extremely unlikely to happen again. The monsters didn't clean these pipes free of rubble, like they did in the tunnels closer to home, and deliberately made them look almost ready to collapse. It was a rare human who dared to brave this area.

Randall remembered his last vigil as a guardian; extremely boring work, in near pitch-darkness. It had been winter at the time, so the puddles of water underfoot had been freezing. He'd been extremely glad when his relief had come.

He didn't envy these monsters.

After passing them, the pipe opened out into a much larger one. A small torrent of water ran along the bottom of the pipe.

"'Must be raining aboveground." He muttered. Great.

It was nearly a month since his scare apprentice had given him that flier. He hadn't been able to get it out of his mind; he had finally given in, and had decided to 'play hero'. He'd been given his assignment less than a week ago. Apparently there had been reports of an animal of "an extremely unusual nature" being caught by an old farmer up in the province of Saskatchewan in Canada. The 'animal' had been sold to an as of yet unknown buyer. Randall was supposed to locate this creature, verify that it was indeed a newly banished monster, and if it was, to help it escape, and return back to Haven.

It sounded a lot simpler than it was. He didn't have a whole lot to go on; he was supposed to head to a little backwater town a few hours drive from Saskatoon, and see what he could find.

Once he left Haven, he would be cut off from monster society, away from any possible help. Ellen served as messenger in Haven, but her tentacles only stretched so far. Actual telephones would increase the chances of a security breach immensely, and even if they made their own radios, it would involve sharing radio signals with the humans, which meant they could get tapped, which meant they could be overheard, discovered... and it'd snowball from there.

So, long story short, no communication with Haven.

All Randall had, all his supplies, where on his back and in his trench coat pockets. Rudimentary first aid kit, some portable food supplies, a small hunting knife and a handmade wooden spork, an old fashioned tinder-box and flint for starting fires, his tool kit, as well as several road maps with his destination and all the possible routes there outlined in pen. He didn't need to burden himself unnecessarily with clothes; he needed nothing but his trusty duster.

A brownish apple-core floated past him, carried along by the current of water that was slowly turning - to Randall's disgust - more opaque as he continued on wards. The first real sign of human 'civilization'.

Huzzah.

He walked in silence for several minutes, until a sign on the wall caught his eye.

_"Beware! Gators in the sewers_!" Randall stared impassively at the words. After a few moments, he just snorted and continued on the way. Oh yeah, the irony was killing him.

Coming to a junction in the pipes, he brought out a browning piece of paper, a monster-drawn map that showed the layout of the tunnels, and where they led -or didn't lead. Many of the tunnels lower-down (ones too close to the human city and too far away from their own to be of any use) had collapsed, and they hadn't bothered to repair them, which resulted in more than one dead end.

Finding the correct route, the lizard monster stuffed the map back in his duster's pocket.

He didn't notice the quiet splashing footsteps following his from a distance behind him.

Looking at his map, then casting his eyes towards the ceiling above the scum-line, Randall determined he was at the right spot. High above his head was a small circle of pale light... surface light. Drops of rainwater dripped downwards and landed at his feet, creating small ripples. Ignoring the rusted out ladder on one side of the tunnel, the lizard monster simply put one hand on the slick surface of the wall, testing it to see if he could stick to it without sliding. He frowned. He could probably make it... if he was fast. The excess water made it difficult. He placed his remaining hands on the tunnel wall, and in one fluid movement, he almost flew upwards, towards the surface. Soundlessly, aside from the faint whoosh of displaced air, he climbed the fifteen-foot pipe in seconds. Randall paused just below the manhole cover, cocking his head to one side, listening for any sounds above him.

All he could hear was the steady patter of raindrops. A raindrop dripped into one eye, he blinked it away, but didn't move, continuing to listen for any possible sound of danger. Aside from the rain, he only heard the sound of one car driving on a street much further away from him.

Satisfied that there were no humans lying in wait to capture him as soon as he set foot out of the tunnel, he raised one hand and carefully lifted up the manhole cover, peering out at the human city. It was dark; nighttime. Almost no chance of a human seeing him. The monster raised the cover higher and, taking care to be as silent as he could, slid it to the side. Taking a deep breath, he glided out onto the human street.

He didn't bother to disappear; he could only make himself invisible, not anything he was carrying. It wouldn't do for a human to see a backpack being carried by a disembodied coat. Besides, even if he was naked, the rain would still bounce off his body, rendering the illusion useless. He would call far less attention to himself if he hunched up in is duster and stuck to the shadows.

Doing so, he started on his way. He knew what direction he had to go in; if he were to walk all the way to Saskatchewan, he'd probably a) wouldn't get there for several months and/or b) freeze to death...eventually. It was about mid-September, so it was more than likely he'd be spending his winter away from Haven; meaning outside, in the snow and the cold. The _Canadian _snow and cold. Made him shiver just thinking about it. He may not be a true reptile (being warm-blooded), but his trench coat wouldn't do him much good in a blizzard, especially if he was caught out in the flat open spaces of the Saskatchewan countryside.

So, he was going by train.

Eying the interior of the train car critically, Randall finally sighed in defeat and hunkered down against one wall. This baggage car had been the only one left that had been loaded, but not secured by the humans yet, aside from one containing some passengers; two dozen pigs. He'd wisely chosen the one without living cargo. It wasn't exactly first class, but it would do for the journey. Besides, at least it got him out of the damn rain.

He had no idea how long the ride would be; the city above Haven was along the coast of the St.Laurance river, near the border between the provinces of Ontario and Québec. All he knew was that the ride would be a long one.

And it should be beginning at any minute. He'd found and boarded the train rather hastily; all the other departing trains were heading in directions that frankly wouldn't do him any good.

The door to the train car he was in was still open a crack. Hearing footsteps outside, Randall ducked behind several particularly large suitcases, assuming that it was a human coming to lock-up the train car. All he could see of the door from his position was the slit of light from the doorway on the floor in front of him. Soon enough, a shadow blocked the doorway. Randall tensed when it didn't move to close the door. It was strangely short for a human...

"Mr.Boggs?"

For the love of- it couldn't be...

"Kid?" Recognizing the voice, Randall slapped a hand to his forehead. The shadow scrambled through the doorway towards him.

It was.

Pin's grinning face peered through the suitcases at him, obviously pleased at finding him.

"What the hell are you thinking, following me?" The lizard monster hissed angrily.

"Haven's boring without you, Mr.Boggs, so I decided to have an adventure!" Pin chirped.

Randall growled "Not now you won't. I'm taking you back home right now."

The younger monster's face fell. "But -"

"Not 'buts'." He growled, picking up his supply bag. "You shouldn't have followed me. How'd you get past the sentinels, anyway?"

"I said that I'd gone back to get something, and that I was going to catch up with you."

Exasperated, Randall ran a hand through his fronds, a nervous habit of his.

"What am I ever going to do with you?" He muttered to himself.

"Let me stay?" Asked the twelve-year old hopefully.

"No."

"But-"

"I already said no 'buts'!" Randall grabbed his apprentice by one arm. "We're getting out of here right-" At the sound of footsteps crunching on the gravel outside, he fell silent. Thinking quickly, he pulled Pin with him into his hiding place.

"What-" The kid started.

"Sh-sh-shht!" The lizard monster hissed, clapping one hand over the younger monster's beak-like muzzle, watching the distinctly human-shaped shadow on the floor not two feet from his nose.

With a screeching, grating sound from the door, the human pulled the sliding door shut. A clunking from the other side of the wall indicated that it'd been locked.

Randall cursed under his breath as not ten seconds later, the train car jerked into motion.

Running any possible courses of action through his mind, he finally sighed in defeat. It wasn't as if he could just jump (inconspicuously) from a moving train with Pin in tow, even if it was raining out. And that's assuming he could somehow unlock the door...

Looks like he was stuck with the kid.

"You're mother's going to kill you for this." Randall said shortly after releasing Pin from his death-grip, searching for a comfortable suitcase to lie on.

Pin seemed ecstatic, but that didn't stop him from making a comment in passing. "Naw..." He waved one hand dismissively. "She's gonna kill you for letting me come along."

The lizard monster couldn't argue with that. Still growling as he settled down on a pile of duffel bags, he thought. 'And I thought I might get bored in this part of the trip... Dammit.'

1 Oooh... I got a shiver from just typing that... :)


	5. Roz Shaped Stains

Chapter Five: Roz-Shaped Stains/The Need To Think Of Another Witty Title Involving More Exposition Chapter

* * *

Randall had no idea how long they'd been traveling. The minutes, hours, maybe even days, all blended together in a boring monotony. 

Suddenly, the train screeched to a halt, sending suitcases tumbling down from where they had been perched precariously. Randall glared at the frilly pink backpack that had come down upon his head, rubbing the sore spot with one hand.

The train had barely stopped moving when the side door was flung open, revealing a group of CDA agents dressed in their traditional yellow uniforms.

The shapeliest stepped forward, taking off her headgear, revealing a stunningly beautiful - and female - lizard-monster.

Swish, swish! Went her long fronds as they were shaken from her helmet.

"Wow, sir, she must be your obligatory hetero love interest!" Pin exclaimed, digging himself out from underneath a pile of luggage.

"I am Waternoose (the third's) long-lost illegitimate daughter! I have braved my ridiculously dark past to rise in the ranks of the CDA. I read your file and have decided to come and rescue you, utilizing a plot hole to locate you! Oh yeah, and I'm also Roz's twin sister; we were separated at birth!"

Randall screamed in terror as the newly revealed monster stalked forward, a predatory grin on her scaled face...

* * *

Bwahahahaha! The looks on your faces were priceless. >:) 

No, really, here's the _real _beginning of Chapter Five:

* * *

Randall had no idea how long they'd been traveling. The minutes, hours, maybe even days, all blended together in a boring monotony. 

One could only stare at the weird, brown, Roz-shaped stain on the ceiling for so long before going insane from boredom (or, perhaps, from staring at that Roz-shaped stain for hours on end). He'd brought along the two books he'd bought weeks before, _Jurassic Park _and A_ Midsummer Night's Dream, _but he'd already long since read them.

For the first few hours of travel, Pin had tried to engage him in conversation, even going to far as to chatter to himself with no reply from Randall, until the lizard-monster's sullen glare caused his sentences to peter off into silence. Now, one could hear a pin 1 drop two kilometers away 2.

May as well do something useful...

Randall removed a file-folder from his supply bag; the one he'd received before leaving, his assignment. It was very thin, only containing a few pieces of paper. One was a clip from a newspaper. The article merely stated that a farmer had found something "As large 's a house, I tell ya!". The only description beyond that was that it was hairy and had claws, which could basically apply to every other mon in the entire Monster World, and even more human-world animals, so wasn't very helpful. It also stated that several people had expressed interest in buying the creature, so it was (presumably) sold, because there were no further articles. It didn't include a picture. Other than that piece of paper, there had been several maps (now stuffed in one of the many pockets in Randall's trench-coat), and several suggested methods of getting there and how to proceed in certain situations. There was also a small allowance of human money, all in small bills, "Just in case".

He'd read the file's contents too many times worth remembering since he'd first received it several weeks ago. Nothing jumped out at him; he didn't have a sudden epiphany of how he should go about rescuing the monster.

...Dammit.

No new information at all since he'd first read it. A pointless exercise; he'd practically memorized it by now anyway.

Finally giving an irritated growl, Randall replaced the papers into their folder and stuffed it into his bag, then turned to search through some of the surrounding suitcases. He'd accepted that he was stuck with Pin, for the present time, at least. Might as well make use of the time he had to teach the kid something useful.

He found what he was looking for in two separate bags; a baseball signed by someone named 'Babe Ruth'3 (for all that it meant to him) from a red, white and blue duffel bag containing other sport paraphernalia, and a small, delicate paper fan from a suitcase labeled with Asian-looking symbols that Randall could make neither head nor tail of. He placed the fan carefully in one of his inner coat pockets for a later lesson. Now, for the current one.

Casually, the lizard monster threw the baseball up a few feet into the air and caught it again in the same hand.

"Think fast!" He chucked it (relatively) gently (for him, anyway) over the pile of bags, at Pin.

"Huh?" _Ponk_! It bounced off the top of Pin's head, ricocheted off the ceiling, landing neatly in the same hand that Randall had thrown it with. "Ow..." Came the faint cry from the other side of the train car. "What'd you do that for!" The apprentice bit out, poking his head up into view from behind the pile of luggage where he'd been hidden, rubbing the new lump on his head.

Randall ignored him. "Your reaction time is pitiful. Try again." He tossed the ball once more.

_Ponk_. "Ow!" At least he'd _tried, _this time. Still, the ball had bounced off the hand/tentacle the younger monster had brought up to catch/block it. It rolled back towards Randall, who quickly scooped it up.

"Again!" The ball was thrown again. This time, it wasn't as much a surprise, and he caught it, fumbling it awkwardly, nearly dropping it. Pin smiled a toothy grin in his teacher's direction, only to find him gone. His face went blank for a moment, twisting around, searching for Randall.

"What - " He was tackled from behind, and soon found himself in a choke hold, face pressed against the dirty metal floor of the train car.

"Always keep an eye and ear out for your enemy, kid." Pin was released, and as he slowly got up, he realized something was missing.

"Sir, where's the ba-" _Ponk_! The ball hit him in the back of his neck.

"I tell you to do things for a reason, kid."

"Yes, sir."

"Now, let's try this again..."

* * *

Two hours (and many more lumps and bruises later), Randall was satisfied that the lesson was done -- for the day at least. By the end, Pin had caught nearly every ball tossed his way, but the kid still relied mostly on his sight to find the ball. If Randall turned invisible and hid the ball behind his body, it always caught the younger monster by surprise, even if the lizard-monster made no effort to quiet his breathing or footsteps. 

But that was enough for now.

Something was different about the train.

It was slowing down.

Which was actually more significant than it sounded; slowing down implied coming to a stop, which it did, with a jerk that sent half the baggage rolling from their places. Something marked 'Fragile: Handle With Care' crashed against the far wall. The sound of several smaller pieces of said fragile case rang in the air with delicate tinkling sounds several seconds after it landed.

Soon enough after the train had come to a complete stop, the railway workers arrived, methodically unlocking all of the railway cars. As soon as theirs was unlocked, and the coast was clear, Randall slid the sliding doorway open just far enough for him and Pin to slip through, and swiftly and silently hid in the shadows underneath the same train car, out of view of the average unobservant railway worker, waiting patiently for night to fall. To any more observant workers (not that there were any), all they would have seen (had they cared to look) would be the subtle glint from two separate – decidedly inhuman – pairs of eyes in the darkness. But, as it was, there was no such worker, and certainly nobody else cared to look.

* * *

1 Haha, pun :3 

2 No, not really, but it sounds better than 'They rode on in silence'.

3 Uh... Is that how it's spelt? I have no real idea who he is; I don't even know how to play baseball. --; I just needed a famous name, okay?

* * *

A/N: I just wanted to apologize for the long wait. This chapter would never have been uploaded were it not for random reviewers like Random Drifter, Cheatachu82, Fanman, Coffee Monster and many more for reviewing, making me feel awesome, and reminding me that this fic actually existed. I'm ashamed to say that I've actually had this chapter (and a part of chapter six, and a large outline) sitting in "My Documents" for well over a year. I apologize most profusely! 

I'm going on vacation tomorrow for several weeks, and what would make me feel absolutely awesome would be if people took notice of the update they asked for and reviewed – if that is so, I'll certainly take a peek at my outline when I return and see if I can't work on this baby. :)

If you're bored and can't find much Randall Boggs goodness on head on over to this fic : http/ ww w.de vi an tart .c om /v iew/1 7743 13 5/ (remove spaces).It's called "Limbo: How Irony Bit Me Squarely in the Rear", and was also written by me, ages ago – and best of all, it's complete! XD It's my pride and joy, so please give it a try if you've enjoyed this fic so far.


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